


The Illusions We Believe

by firstlovelatespring



Category: Arrested Development
Genre: M/M, Post-Finale, just hands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-11-07 23:09:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20825354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firstlovelatespring/pseuds/firstlovelatespring
Summary: “My brother Michael is coming into town,” Gob says. “Savior Michael. Probably expects that the family fell apart while he was in Phoenix. That I’m still single.”





	The Illusions We Believe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nerdyscully (dalecooperscoffee)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dalecooperscoffee/gifts).

> I hope you like this, Dee! <3  
Thanks to [Rebecca](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queen_Andr0meda/pseuds/Queen_Andr0meda) for beta reading.

It’s Friday. It’s Friday, and that means Sally Sitwell is out having dinner at the club, and Gob is over at Tony and Sally’s place to do hand stuff. He’s pretty sure Sally knows about them—there’s always twice the amount of dove feathers and lighter fluid on the bedroom floor after Gob leaves—so they don't really have to wait until she's reliably out, but he likes the ritual of secret Friday evening hand stuff anyway. It’s something to look forward to, something to break up the monotony of magic shows and Segway trips and printed teeth.

This week, Gob is a little distracted. He’s a distracted person, really, easily distracted, by anything and everything, but this distraction is so severe it’s almost like focus. After the hand stuff, they usually lay around and talk for a while (about illusion theory, the latest issue of _Poof!_, where you can get the best price for mice) but today, Tony turns on his side to face Gob.

“You’re distracted,” Tony says, perceptively, even though Gob knows for a fact that Tony Wonder has a remarkably low capacity for perception.

“My brother Michael is coming into town,” Gob says. The word _Michael_ gets all twisted up in his mouth, and also in his face. Gob’s emotions require a remarkably low level of perception to get. He and Tony fit together like that. “Savior Michael. Probably expects that the family fell apart while he was in Phoenix. That I’m still single.”

“Technically, you are still single,” Tony points out, which hurts, but he also takes Gob’s hand, which does not hurt. They stay away from most “romance” stuff, much too gay, but hand-holding is okay. It’s _just hands_.

“Well, yeah, but he doesn’t know that. It’s all about the _assumption_, Tony. Dad used to say, assumptions make an ass out of you something. Weird expression, huh.” Gob and Tony nodded in agreement. “Anyway, the point is, he’s always making a-somethings about me! And just once—” Gob reclaims his hand from Tony so that he can wave his arms dramatically— “just once, I wish I could prove him wrong.”

Tony doesn’t say anything for a while, but he looks like he’s thinking hard. It’s either about Gob’s predicament, or possibly their weekend plans to spy on the Magicians’ Alliance.

“Sally’s in DC this week, I could come along and try to make you look settled down.”

Gob considers whether Michael would think of dating a magician with a large, pink, W-shaped beard as him being “settled down.” Eh, probably. Anyway, the only time Michael ever settled down was with Tracy, and that didn’t last so long, did it? Tony would never pull a dick move like coming down with ovarian cancer, so Gob’s already one-upped Michael there.

“We could take your brother out to dinner at the Gothic Castle, it might be nice,” Tony adds.

“But we could still, you know, after, right?” Gob likes showing up Michael, obviously, but not half as much as he likes hand stuff.

“Yeah, ‘course,” Tony scoffs.

“Well, that would be like… Isn’t that like what we already do?” Gob asks. That’s not exactly the question he meant to ask. Gob can feel something crystallizing in his mind, jumping to the tip of his tongue, something that he’ll never be able to un-think or un-say, but it isn’t here yet. Maybe someone is about to call him a Geo-bead. Probably not. He’s circling it, though. He continues his line of thought out loud: “We go to a magic show, come back to your place and—” He mimes jerking off. “Just like what we want Michael to _think_ we do!”

“Eh, I guess,” Tony agrees. “That’s good for our plan,” he adds. “It’s easier to lie about something when it’s close to the truth.”

“Like when you were the gay magician,” Gob says.

“Yeah, like when I was— I mean, that was just business.”

Gob’s compiled his own thoughts about exactly how much of Tony Wonder’s gay magician persona was business, but he’s learned from experience that arguing over which one of them is actually gay gets him nowhere fast. “You already have practice pretending to be gay, I mean,” he lies smoothly.

“Yeah. And I’m sure you’ll do great, too,” Tony says, after a not insignificant pause, which means the thing about Gob was definitely an afterthought. “Besides, like I said, it’s basically the truth.”

“That’s how I’ll really get Michael’s goat,” Gob says. Scheming is a tremendous amount of fun. “I’ll hit him with the cold, hard truth. He’ll never expect it!” Gob falls into evil laughter, and then realizes that what he’s laughing over isn’t really so evil at all, but by that time Tony has already joined in, and he finds he doesn’t exactly mind.

“It’s not like we have to tell your brother we love each other or anything,” Tony says.

“What, no, of course not.” Gob rolls his eyes dramatically. “Should the guy in the—should the—should the—”

Gob finds himself stuck, and not just because the L-word always gives him a case of the come-ons. The thing he was piecing together earlier has finally reached the tip of his tongue, and he has to keep stuttering until it squashes back inside his small intestine or something where it belongs. Tony helps him calm down a bit, and Gob wonders what Michael would say. Probably that he should be open about his “feelings” or something. But that’s because Michael doesn’t understand: he and Tony don’t ever need to say it. Gob isn’t even sure he’s capable of saying it. 

Tony squeezes his hand, and then turns out the lights. They don’t need to say it out loud, but they know.


End file.
